DEN87DTE01 · Cassutt SPORT RACER SPORT RACE
Cassutt SPORT RACER SPORT RACE · Accident en route
From 2V2 · Longmont, CO to 01V · Aurora, CO
Event
- NTSB case
- DEN87DTE01
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- 0
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cassutt SPORT RACER SPORT RACE
- Aircraft type
- Cassutt SPORT RACER
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N913M
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From 2V2 · Longmont, COTo 01V · Aurora, CO
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · cruise
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Miscellaneous/other
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Stall/mush
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Pilot in command › Airspeed, not maintained
- Pilot in command › Preflight planning/preparation, inadequate
- Pilot in command › Stall/mush, inadvertent
- Window, flight compartment window/windshield › Unlocked
Approximate · Coordinates as recorded by the NTSB; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
THE PLT RPRTD THAT HE DID NOT PROPERLY LOCK THE CANOPY & IT CAME OPEN DRG FLT AT 7000 FT MSL. HE REDUCED THE SPEED & ATTEMPTED TO CLOSE THE CANOPY, BUT WAS NOT SUCCESSFUL. HE DIVERTED & ATTEMPTED TO LAND AT THE VAN AIRE ARPT WHILE HOLDING THE CANOPY WITH HIS LEFT HAND. THE THROTTLE WAS ON THE LEFT SIDE OF THE COCKPIT. WHILE PREPARING TO LAND, THE PLT HELD THE STICK BTN HIS LEGS & REACHED OVER WITH HIS RGT HAND TO REDUCE THE THROTTLE SETTING. RPRTDLY, THE ACFT LOST SPEED FASTER THAN THE PLT EXPECTED & BEGAN TO STALL AS IT WAS CROSSING OVER A POND JUST SHORT OF THE RWY. THE LANDING GEAR CONTACTED THE WATER & THE ACFT CARTWHEELED & CAME TO REST IN THE POND.
Verbatim NTSB analysis from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DEN87DTE01
- Event ID
- 20001213X34944
- Case number
- DEN87DTE01
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 6596469cbab1eb29deef33aecab5ebe0d625bc879a38ab0884d6b29d04b90795; retrieved 2026-09-23T13:55:18.591Z.